- Beat!Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Time: 63:51:27
Not the DQ8 successor I was expecting but still a really dang good DQ. For the first 41 hours. The next 15 were a huge drag. Then after that it was back to being good through to the end! As opposed to what many other peeps say, I thought the soundtrack was nice. Composer may be a shitstain but its not reflected in the music. The difficulty was much more even than in other DQs and so was the economy. I never sold a single item, had enough money to get things as needed, and barely had to seek out materials to use with the forge. Jumping, running, auto-save, patches... lotsa new to DQ features sooo anyone that claims its a relic is weird causes theres lotsa modern stuff in there. Supposedly the post-games content rich but over 60 hours was enough for me. I may check that down the road though.

Super Bomberman R
Time: 2:38:33
I haven't played to many Bomberman games but I know by reputation their single player modes usually suck & drag on much to long. Not the case here! Averaged 20 some minutes per world and thanks to their being difficulty options it was much more painless than others! I dunno why theres a slight camera tilt by default, but I figured out quickly you could make it normal topdown an that helped alot! The grind to get all the unlocks seems harrowing but given the short time I spent with it so far it makes sense I didn't make much moneys. Prolly get way more through the battle mode! In the end its Bomberman, these games have always been pretty samey an this ones no different, but since I haven't played one in a long while it filled a nice lil gap in my lineup!

I remember accidentally getting everyone killed when Loki (?) streamed FTL. Oops. Turns out, getting everyone killed is much easier than you think in FTL. Doesn't make me feel quite as bad any more. I've only beaten that last boss once so far, but we'll see if I can do more.

Into the Breach I got because FTL, so that'll be something to try out.

Mages I got because a friend recommended it to me to go in tandem with Wizard of Legend so that'll be interesting.

I've also only reached the final boss of FTL like twice and only beaten it once. The RNG for shops kind of makes or breaks you. Get the good stuff middle game, you're probably solid for the rest of the game. Get them too early and you probably can't afford it. There's no getting it late. You're probably already on a fail run of you get good equipment late.

I'm replaying Final Fantasy I using a "meme team" of four Black Belts.

There was a website dedicated to the NES version of FF1 years ago that famously hated on the Black Belt, because it's a pretty bad, if unique class. Unlike normal classes that need equipment and spells to get better, Black Belts have enormous bonuses from level up and actual negative modifiers if they use equipment. So Black Belts tend to operate best with no equipment, making them very inexpensive and low maintenance compared to other classes.

However, their "absorb" or "armour class" is pathetic, perhaps below even the Red Mage or Thief, so you have to shower them in healing potions to keep them alive. During the early game they're OK, but leveling them is absolutely punishing from Level 6-15 or so. The game curve isn't designed with these characters in mind, imagine trying to fight with physical mages during that part of the game. That's how bad they are.

But after Level 12, the Black Belt gets an extra attack per turn, and it snowballs from there. While their individual attack isn't high, they gain a high number of attacks per turn, and each attack has an individual chance to crit for double damage. At Level 21, a Fighter with the top gear could do 160-200 damage per turn. Black Belts do 400+ on a crit, and since crits bypass Absorb, they can effectively OHKO anything in the game at this point.

Even the "Scum", a mustard jelly-like monster with 255 Absorb (the highest in the game, apparently), my highest level Black Belt did 246 damage to it on a crit. It has 24 HP.

__________________

あなたの勇気が切り開く未来
ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望
今 信じあえる
あきらめない 心かさね
永遠を抱きしめて

Last edited by Doppleganger; 01-31-2019 at 05:52 PM.
Reason: famous > famously

I've been grinding on the Peninsula of Power. The Tyro, while a rare enemy, is the ideal Black Belt target because it gives a fat amount of EXP and only has a single attack, so it's fairly easy to outdamage.

I overleveled one party member and he's almost at Level 27. At Level 28, the peninsula monsters will start to run away from me and this won't be a good place to grind anymore.

I'm really far from the Gurgu Volcano. I haven't even reached Melmond yet.

- Beat!Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition
Time: 00:13:10
Blew through one of the arcade modes ta cap off a year of playing this weekly. Think I've got about as much outta this game as I'm gonna an with basically the death of fight money theres even less incentive to tune in weekly. Can just clean up the easy arcade mode endings I'm missing an retire!

Resident Evil 2 - Leon: A
Time: 03:13:24
Classic Edition needless to say! Have not played this in a super long time but I still had leftover saves with NG+ super weapons soooo I cheesed it anyhow! Unlimited rockets and a guide handy still weren't enough to keep me from needing to heal a bunch and I still got plenty creeped out and unnerved. The sound effects man~ Also it was like 2 hours until the first boss and then they basically didn't let up after that!

Resident Evil 2 - Claire: B
Time: 02:57:34
So ya having not played in so long there was tons I forgot! Like that Moth "boss". Seriously what even was that thing. An with them gaps in my memory I expected to get spooked in places where nothing happens and then got REALLY spooked in ones where they do @[email protected] Really short, really good game that holds up well! An that B-side end credits music is still boss.

Almost done with FF1. Had to restart due to my session crashing, so I went this time with two Fighters/two Black Belts thinking it would be easier.

Early game it was, but very quickly the Fighters became a drag. Even right now without the very top top equipment, the Black Belts do like four times as much damage, at least. My strongest Black Belt was able to OHKO Kraken at Level 41 (800 HP, 60 Absorb). The Fighters couldn't really touch him at Level 30.

Moreover, having pure Black Belts is better. Due to the Magic Defense bug, you need to level your Black Belts to Level 50 before class change, so they get perfect Magic Defense and don't need a Ribbon (which resets their Absorb to 1). But for the Fighters, their best equipment is class-restricted, requiring them to upgrade to Knight to get the big damage and heavy protection equips. So I'm in a weird spot where I can't level the Fighters past 37 (without them losing their Spell classes) but I need my Black Belts to Level 50.

The asymmetric items also make this a problem. I think the ideal setup is one Fighter with three Black Belts if you use the Ribbon bug, since the Fighter can have the heaviest stuff and resist 5 of the 8 elements (weak only to Earth, Status, Time). Next best would be Fighter with Ribbon, heavy stuff and naked Black Belts.

Two Fighters make it more of a problem. One Fighter has to go with second-rate equipment and there is resistance redundancy.

Also, I'm going to give one of my Fighters the Thor Hammer and the other Zeus Gauntlets, because I need AOE as an all-physical team. Having two LIT2 casts is more important than damage at this point given how not-as-good the Fighters are at it.

There are games you play because the central premise grabs you, and there are games you play mostly to say you did (e.g. Duke Nukem Forever). Apex Legends falls into the latter camp for me.

Everything about this game screamed "sent out to die" (a AAA game released with absolutely zero hype or fanfare in a relatively busy month, yet another battle royale "but with ______" that suggested a desperate lunge for the bandwagon), but the game EA had apparently zero faith in has turned out to be a sleeper hit that currently wrestles with Fortnite for the top spot on Twitch while Anthem's shine is starting to come off even before general release. It's fascinating to me, in other words, because it displays in a visceral way how totally fucking clueless the leadership at EA is, and as the designated E3 shit talker I am totally here for it.

Review: This game is weird and on many levels. It has a strange gameplay that mixes Fire Emblem, real time pause from CRPGs, and third person shooting that works out mostly. But it also has contradictory game design that forces players to either accept a poorer score and thus require more grinding to make up for it, or force players to maximize efficiency which is probably best done by looking up guides. This is ultimately the biggest issue IMO.

Each mission has several criteria for rewards of EXP and DCT (money). Both of which are needed to keep your squad strong as the chapters get more difficult.
1) Rank - Determined by the number of turns you need to complete the mission.
2) Enemy Leader Kills - Slightly buffed enemies in highlighted by their red uniforms. Killing them also reduces enemy actions per turn.
3) Enemy Ace Kills - More buffed leaders with unique names. They are typically hidden on the map and have high chance to dodge your attacks, but rewards your army with captured weapons which typically hit harder but with poorer range and accuracy.
4) Enemy Tank Kills - Big tough metal kill machines. Their butts have a weakpoint but you probably need a Lancer (anti-tank trooper) or your own tank to kill them.

The issue is that Rank completely contradicts the other three criteria and also rewards the most, A rank essentially tripling your EXP and DCT from the chapter's base reward whereas Leaders/Ace/Tanks give a flat bonus. In addition to this, A Ranks also gives you more rewards in the form of Royal Weapons, bonus weapons with higher stats. This makes rank the most important issue each map.

Unfortunately, the game is extremely strict with Rank. Many early missions requiring completion in 1 to 2 turns. You're only given a certain amount of actions each turn so you now have to find the Ace and kill him, kill all leaders, kill all tanks, and complete the mission objective in the span of like 8 actions. Early on, this is also made more difficult because low level troops have extremely limited movement, thus forcing multiple actions to complete a task and even more severely limiting your tasks.

This forces maximization from the player. Exploration and experimentation are kind of thrown out in favor of efficiency and optimization. This leads to looking up guides or videos and kind of takes away some of the fun.

Did I still enjoy the game? Yeah. Despite the flaws, the game is still fun to play. The troops in your squad are each unique with different potentials (aka Feats or Perks) that affect their play. Some characters become useless unfortunately while others become godly. Still, their personalities come through their weird potentials and keeps it interesting. The game also gives bios about each soldier and it gets you invested in your favorites. The story is weird anime WW2 stuff with a ton of cutscenes. I think my playtime was easily half cutscenes and half gameplay. Some weird stuff storywise, but whatever. It's fine. I'll probably come back to do the DLC and a 2nd playthrough later on.

Would I recommend this? In a general sense, probably not. If you like anime and weird turn based war games, sure. Try it out. But it's definitely not for everyone.

Picked Up:

Valkyria Chronicles 4 (also on PC) ~6 hours

So right off the bat, I haven't beaten this game, but it's pretty clear they've learned their lessons. The game is in general more enjoyable and considerably less strict for ranking as well as more varied missions. There's also been nerfs and buffs that I think work well. I've also decided to go in blind for this game (whereas I almost did all of VC1 with walkthroughs) so I've been enjoying it thus far.

- Demo'd!Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn
This seems like a level of cute beyond the standard Kirby cute. But it also feels alil bit slower than others? An strange cause he can't fly. But also neat an prolly full of secrets cause of the whole pulling the levels together/apart aspect. This is on I oughta pick up at some point!

- Beat!.hack//Link
Time: 85:30:59
Extra thorough playthrough edition via the latest (final?) fan translation patch. Still enjoy this game an having the story in 99.9% english (an untranslated or bugged out line or two are still in there) finally proves the games story/characters is legit good and still forever better than G.U. stuff!

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Time: 43:01:42
Playing this after DQ11 just goes ta show that this gens not really especially above last-gen in terms of looks cause this was a really good looking game! And its an HD rpg with an actual overworld an different modes of travel?! Wow! The main character being a wizards pretty different. Magic over Melee is uncommon! Familiars are where melee come in, though some of them are for magic too. Because I adore monster collecting I caught/evolved 89% of 'em! Also did all side content to, an wow this game did that right as well! Its got a "side content meta" in which you get some pretty cool bonus rewards just for doing certain amounts of side stuff! More rpgs should do that. Story was good, world was interesting, music good, and battles... abit hard to grasp at first! But I got it in the end ^.^

- Get!PlayStation Classic
Right from setting it up I could see where its not quite as rad as the SNES classic cause it can't be powered directly from the tv and other reasons. But just going through the lineup of games on there still makes it feel worthwhile. Plus its super cute! An I got it for a quarter of the original price so ya!

- Beat!Sonic Forces
Time: 03:06:13
The story & dialogue were really bad! Not in the "so bad its good way" neither. Just the... "yeah its bad" way. But that stuffs prolly the most memorable parts of the game at least after a first playthrough. Levels were generic "green hill", "chemical plant", "metropolis", etc. Despite that stuff I had fun! An it helped that levels usually didn't feel dragged out or full of the usual surprise kills that Sonic games tend to have. Only boss I died on was the final one and stage-wise there were only like 2 parts I had to retry a few times. Oh yeah, an there Lives system is gone. You can just crack your head against the part of the level ya died at without having to worry about Game Over and retrying from the start. Thats good stuff!

BROKE: Genociding Zubat for EVs
WOKE: Genociding Chansey for EXP
BESPOKE: So that you can pay a spastic running a mall kiosk in bottle caps to shoot up your Pokemon with andro

GAME FREAK: We took the opportunity to update the mechanics in gen 7 to bring Pokemon into the modern era, but with nods to the faithful fans that have made it a beloved franchise for 20 years. Giovanni formed the Pokemon Legion of Doom, and you get to shit in his cornflakes! Red and Blue got gay married, and now you can ruin their honeymoon!

Players: This is nice, but can we get a new Battle Frontier so that the non-online endgame isn't the same rehashed "Battle Tower with the serial numbers filed off" that we've all done a million times?

GAME FREAK: That's too hard, so we made a shitty Battle Factory clone crippled by ill-conceived gachapon mechanics: do you like this

"Salandit is neat, and it's the first gen 7 Pokemon I've encountered that I really like. I wonder what it evolves into"

*checks Bulbapedia*

"oh no"

Ride Pokemon are great: how did we live for so long with having to waste team space on some route 1 garbagemon that sucks ass but learns like 4 HMs, holy shit

Would:
-Wife Wicke
-Get fucked up on fairy dust with Mina
-Throw Acerola into a volcano

Sic semper tyrannis, you cat-face fuck

Kukui is a millennial Pokemon professor who barely maintains the pretense of being a functional human being, and as a fellow millennial I respect that

On the other hand...no you dumb asshole, don't bring formulaic gym shit to not-Hawaii: totem Pokemon fights are one of the few things in Pokemon's main story that push back and as a consequence are actually interesting. Go fuck your manic-depressive wife

Dimensional travel is a cool idea that is extremely undercooked. Fuck Little Britain, give us the SWOLE JUNGLE

__________________

"It does not matter anymore. We cannot change the past. The future will have to do."
-Windham Khatib

Still...I wouldn't crush on a woman who has a clear addiction to human growth hormone.

You're entitled to your desperately wrong and extremely weird opinion, but let's look at the facts:

As someone who also suffers from monomania and emotional unavailability Kahili is my sister from another mister, but those aren't exactly qualities you look for in a romantic partner. That and your life would most likely become a circle of hell where your ironic punishment is having the Golf Channel on 24/7.

10 year-old trainer:
Olivia: Did you know that I haven't fucked in almost three years

Lusamine absolutely has shit in her basement that would get her tried in the Hague, and that's before considering that she spawned the world's saddest edgelord and KAWAII DESU NE UGUU~

__________________

"It does not matter anymore. We cannot change the past. The future will have to do."
-Windham Khatib

On Day 3 of this and it's indeed a challenge. I'm having greater struggle with this than Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels.

What is shocking is the high difficulty compared to DKC 1, which is a notoriously easy game. The second boss in this game was harder than any boss in DKC and I spent 30 lives trying to beat the third.

I like the content but hate how you have to find all the secrets to clear a level. What I liked about DKC 1 was the secrets were optional and rewarded adventurous gameplay. Because of the low difficulty, you could mess around some.

Here, I don't want to needlessly waste lives jumping into unknown places because I need the lives to pass some of the puzzles. This makes going back to the hidden areas a chore, not an adventure.

Also, even if it doesn't have any effect now, needing to pay for hints, saves and flights is annoying.

This game is so cute??? It's a little darling RPGMaker game that I first heard of about two years ago. It's finally out and I'm enjoying it! It came out in December but I was in school lmao

Pros
+ It's cute
+ Music is good
+ It's graphically really nice (pixel art is my weakness)
+ It's LONG??? I'm 7 hours in and I'm pretty sure I'm only like a quarter in from the achievement list.

Cons
- It's probably the most repetitive RPG I've ever played (story and battle wise) Fight a monster. Turns out Monster has problem. Help monster. Find another monster that can also help. Fight a boss. Monster's are now happy and calmed
- The main character is kinda lame

I haven't played KH2 since like... 2010ish? I beat 3 within a week of release and wanted to replay the other games. My friend (who has played KH2 four times THIS YEAR) convinced me to play critical mode and I am suffering.